Complete Submission: (The Submission Series, Books 1-8) (35 page)

I wanted to know every twitch, every growl, every moment of desperate need, and eat her alive. If she needed me to be exclusive, I could do it. I’d just put Sharon on ice and stop looking around. How long could Monica last? A month? Two? How long could she make me laugh before she started asking for more? How many things could leave her lips that would make me want to put my face on hers? She couldn’t stay so attractive for long. She’d burn herself out soon enough, but for the time being, I could not have created a more flawless woman.

I felt bad about bruising her, but I hadn’t done half the damage her ex-boyfriend’s piece had done. What a dick. And as soon as I saw that guy, what he’d done, and the way he looked at her, I wanted her for myself. I knew she was going to ask for exclusivity, I could see it in her face, and once I saw that piece, I was ready to give it to her. The thought of her getting hurt bothered me. It wasn’t her personally as much as it was wrong to make their private business so public. It wasn’t that hearing her cry made my fist clench, or that I felt as though I saw some shameful part of her she’d wanted to keep hidden. It was an overall, amoral wrongness. Could have been anyone, and I would have been just as mad.

Well, maybe not as mad.

Damn. I should have taken her home. I had a weird compulsion to reach out to her.

—Thank you for tonight. I’ll call you during the week to check on that baseball—

—You’re welcome—

A flat, emotionless response. Odd. I regretted letting her out of arm’s reach.

—Speaking of…They’re playing the Mets the day after I get back—

—Ok good night—

I sat back. Not even a joke or wisecrack. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. My phone dinged again, but it wasn’t Monica loosening up. It was Jess.

Interesting that Erik wasn’t there. He usually followed her around like a little beta puppy. Exactly what she needed. Half a man. I took a calming breath and called her.

“Jess.”

“Jon. Where are you?”

She didn’t sound good, and if I judged the whooshing background right, she was already home.

“Coming up LFB.” Our shortcut for Los Feliz Boulevard, from when I was whole and had someone to make up little acronyms with.

“Are you alone?”

“Lil is driving. What’s wrong, baby?” I could have guessed it was Erik, but she’d never admit it.

“Can I see you?”

I looked at my watch. My plane was scheduled out of Santa Monica at six. I could make it if I left Venice by four. If history was any indication though, I’d be out of there in an hour. I wished I could tell her no, but we had too much history, too much intimacy to just turn my back. So I let Lil take me home, then I got into the Mercedes and went to Venice.

Again.

***

Jessica lived on the beach, as her publicly sunny demeanor demanded. I parked and walked up the long stairway to the back, where the pool overlooked the ocean. The furniture was gone, as was the barbecue. She stood alone at the half empty bar with her glass of white wine, still wearing her flowing white dress. It outlined the shape of her body in the breeze, making me think immediately of pulling her legs open, but gently. That brought my hot little goddess back to mind, because with her, gentle was optional. I should have nailed her in the car, bruises or no. I wasn’t any less aroused than her, and now I was in a dangerous position. I wanted to fuck. I had a weight at the base of my cock that needed to drop, somewhere, somehow.

“Jess,” I said when I could see her puffy eyes. “Wasn’t there a party or something? After the opening?”

“I couldn’t take it any more. Smile, talk about popsicle sticks and culture’s effects on childhood memories. Smile. Answer process questions about keeping dead trees alive. Smile again. How are you?”

I snapped a glass off the rack, and Jessica poured me some wine. “I’m fine, really. You called me over here to ask me how I am? It looks like I should be asking you the question.”

She barely paused before getting to the point. “Erik.”

“I thought you were engaged.”

“So did I. Do you want to sit?” She indicated the indoor patio behind sliding glass doors.

The thought of going inside and lounging on a couch with her, which I’d done a hundred times, somehow seemed too risky, so I slid onto a barstool. “Where’s everything? Those hideous fucking lamps are gone.”

She took a deep breath and swished her wine around. “Three days ago, he took them. They were his.”

“Figured.” I didn’t know what she wanted. Was I supposed to sympathize? She had dozens of girlfriends, each with two shoulders to cry on. What the hell was I doing there?

“He found out you were coming to the opening. And he just went off. ‘Why’s this guy still hanging around? Why can’t you cut him loose?’ Blah blah.” She downed her wine. “He doesn’t understand. Or didn’t understand. As you can see, he decided to stop trying, which I guess is for the best.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, but I’m not taking the blame for it.”

“Jon. You don’t have to get defensive.”

“Jess. What do you want, if not to blame me?”

She was a bundle of nerves, which no other person would notice because she never wasted a movement. She didn’t have a set of sweet little tics like Monica. Jessica was still water, her tension revealed in her gaze, which sat in the middle distance.

“I should be frank,” she said.

“You be anyone you want.”

“Not funny.”

I waited until she was ready, because she’d get to it if I stopped cracking wise, and I had the feeling I would want to hear it.

She took a deep breath. “I think Erik had something. I think he was seeing something I was pretending wasn’t there.”

She was squirming. Oh, this was good. Delicious even. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to assume she was going where I thought she was because I didn’t want the rug pulled from under me again. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d implied she wanted me back and then turned the conversation back on itself.

“You’ve always been there for me.” She looked up, right at me.

“We were married,” I said. “I told you, I take that seriously.”

She took half a step toward me. I’d been through that before with her, and I wouldn’t lean into her half a centimeter I didn’t have to. I hoped with the same fervor, but I was gun shy. Even when she put her fingers on top of my hand, which she hadn’t done in a while, I was torn. After the divorce, she’d still touch me, but she’d back off like a hosed down cat as soon as I went for her. I was impatient with the games and horny as hell from being around Monica. I felt like a caged animal.

So when she touched my face, I froze, convinced I would spin her by the hair and bend her over. That wouldn’t do at all. Not if I was going to have her again.

“You’re being shy, Jon. That’s not like you.”

“You going to push me away?”

“No. Not this time.”

Fine. I put my hands on the sides of her face so she couldn’t turn and pushed her against the bar. I choked off her squeak with a kiss. She kissed me back. She really did.

The drop in my chest was relief. My stomach tightened. To have my life back. To be back to normal again. With my wife at my side, a sealed unit, unbreakable. I touched my old self when I put my hand on her breast. The completed me, at my fingertips.

I pulled her skirt around her hips and hitched her up. She put her legs around my waist, and I carried her inside.

It was dark with those ass-ugly lamps gone. I wanted light to see her, to believe it. Oh, anything could go wrong between us writhing on the couch and me actually getting my dick in her. I remembered my promise to Monica, but I could explain the next day. I’d be sorry to see that sweet thing go, but woman would tolerate infidelity, and I cared too much about both of them to sneak around. Jessica had to be my choice. I’d taken a vow, begged for it to be honored, and waited so long that turning away the possibility of a reunion seemed ludicrous.

I pulled the top of her dress down.

Gorgeous in the moonlight. Those breasts, with little rocks for nipples at the tips. I sucked them and tasted her. The taste of me being normal again. The taste of morning dew and cut grass. I rolled her nipple over my tongue and pushed my hips into her. I whispered her name in a fog of relief and delight. I could barely breathe.

“Are you sure, Jess?” She’d better be sure. Between her and that delicious little girl in Echo Park, I was a throbbing rock.

“Yes, baby. Make love to me like you used to. In the beginning.”

Yes, I wanted to. And I might have. If she hadn’t asked for the old me back, I might have been as sweet and gentle as our first night. But in my ear, as if she sat right next to me, I heard Monica moan, “Hurt me, Jonathan. Tear me in two.” I got even harder, if that was possible, and I was at the point where I could expect to walk out of there with a pair of ten pound weights between my legs. I was too old for that shit.

I faced Jessica. She was beautiful. Exactly the girl I remembered. Her lips were parted, her breathing shallow as she pushed her hips into me. So close. I was so close to having her again.

“I’m sorry, Jess.”

“For what?”

“This.” I pulled myself off her and sat down by her feet.

She propped herself on her elbows, legs still spread. “What? Why?”

I stroked her calf and looked in her face, half cast in the moonlight. “Because. It’s been too much. I just... I can’t.”

She tucked her legs away and crouched, kneeling by me. She touched my face, and I saw her hurt. She had a deep fear of loneliness. Leaving her alone would undoubtedly be the hardest thing I ever did. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Is this spite? Or revenge?”

I got up. I owed her honesty, at least, after everything we’d been through, after all I’d promised her, after all the times we’d hurt each other. “It’s too late. I’m sorry. I’m not the same man.”

“Is it that girl?”

“Which girl?” I knew exactly who she meant. I was suddenly sorry I’d brought Monica to the show. Had I known Erik had walked out, I would have kept her home and writhed around with her all night, just to shield her from my ex-wife’s eyes. The thought of that bruised ass, and her attitude about it, even the guilt I’d felt at giving it to her, made my dick twitch to the point of pain. “It’s a dalliance, Jess. Don’t try to read more into it.”

Jessica didn’t answer. She just stared at me as if she was reading a book. She must have seen right through me.

“Just go, then,” she said quietly.

I wanted to say more, to apologize again or offer some comfort, but in a quarter of a second, I thought better of it. The front door. I just had to make it to the front door. I took long strides, looping my fingers in my keyring as I stepped into the night air. My Mercedes was five steps away. It had been her favorite. That’s why I’d brought it. Maybe it was time to get rid of it.

“Jon,” she called out. I took another step, getting my hand on the car, not looking back. I didn’t want to change my mind. I didn’t want another argument. I thought maybe I could get back to Echo Park in time to not make a rude ass of myself in front of Monica.

I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t heard Jessica. I looked back, just to say good-bye. I didn’t see her immediately, but once my eyes scanned the front walk, I saw her, balled up on the ground.

The visit was getting more dramatic than I’d anticipated. Did she feel this way when I’d gotten on my knees and begged her to stay? I’d been such a mess of tears I couldn’t remember her expression. God, I’d never do that again.

She cradled her arm. I went to her, and from the way she looked at me, I knew I wasn’t getting to my little goddess of Echo Park that night.

***

Dr. Fuhr was in Aruba, but a few phone calls and he’d managed to get us skipped ahead in the emergency room if we could get to Cedars in twenty minutes. It was late enough that the 10 was clear, and we zipped along with the top up, an ice pack on Jessica’s arm and a sulk on her face.

“She’s pretty,” Jessica said.

“Who?” I asked as if I didn’t know.

“The girl from tonight. Are they all that pretty?”

“Mostly,” I lied.

She looked out the window. “Do they all let you fuck them the way you like it?”

The foul language brought my breath in. That wasn’t her way of speaking, and her tone prodded. I took the bait because it was late, my balls ached, and Dr. Fuhr hadn’t been available.

“How do I like it, Jess? Maybe you can just repeat back to me what you told all your friends?”

“I needed to tell someone!”

“Everyone. You told everyone that I wanted to beat you. Beat you?”

“You changed, Jon. I was scared.”

We’d been through it so many times, the tracks of the argument were smooth and well worn, but that felt different. It felt like the last time.

“I changed because you changed me. And I’ll always be grateful. You made me right with myself.”

“And right with yourself means you want to tie women up and hurt them.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone. You’re so fucking vanilla, Jess. It’s like a religion. You can’t see outside it.”

I turned into the ER at Cedars, not facing her until I parked. Tears dampened her face. I hadn’t heard her crying in the white noise of the freeway.

I put my hand on hers, but she shook it off.

“I wish we could go back to the way we were,” she said.

“I don’t.”

***

Erik came an hour later, as she was in the x-ray room. We shook hands like gentlemen.

“Nothing happened,” I told him. “She’s all yours.”

The blonde lock drooping over his forehead swayed. He owned a surfboard company, but his face was permanently tanned from twenty years on the waves. “She never was.”

“Well, honestly, this is the last time I’m coming running. I’m done. And I’m sorry I had my foot in your yard for so long.”

We shook hands again, and I put my hand on his arm because I was really, terribly sorry I’d caused him grief over a woman who was completely wrong for me.

***

It wasn’t until I got on the 10 that I started to feel as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I pulled off on Mulholland to feel the Merc take the curves like a lumbering behemoth for the last time. I hated that goddamn car. I would get rid of it immediately. A smile spread across my face, and I laughed so hard I had to pull over. Laughter overtook me, turning to tears and back to a deep, silent laughter in my chest again. From relief. From a break in tension. From sheer joy. I was free. Fucking free.